


Sweet Dreams

by TwistedViolets



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, Grace centric, Mental institution! AU, Plot Twists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:42:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24392971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedViolets/pseuds/TwistedViolets
Summary: Reginald Hargreeves, world renown scientist has been given the greatest honor. Watching over Seven special children who have shown special abilities beyond human comprehensive.Unfortunately, the children are no more special than the gum on the bottom of his shoe. They, however believe they are.He hires Grace to help oversee their cases.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 66





	Sweet Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> So I was stuck at an event all day yesterday and this is what I managed to write. There are a few scenes which I might flesh out eventually.
> 
> Excuse any typos at the moment...

_Patient 01: He believes himself to have super strength. He is a goody-two-shoes boy, always offering his help to staff as well as himself._

_Although the child is stronger than most children his age, this is due to his upbringing. His mother, being single, had forced hard work into the child from a young age._

_Other notes: Child is allegedly allergic to shellfish._

...

_Patient 01 has a terrible habit of bending forks and spoons at lunch with the other children. The other children seem to egg him on, making the child even more delusional._

_Patient 03, has started to become infatuated with Patient 01._

_The reason: unknown._

_The Effect: unknown._

_Must get more data._

————————————————————

_Patient 02: believes himself to be able to breathe underwater. This most likely stems from a traumatic event that had occurred when the child was only six and his mother had attempted to drown him._

_The child often throws objects, sharp shivs he had made out of toothbrushes, at walls and occasionally other patients._

...

_Patient 02 fights Patient 01 often, claiming Patient 01 is a suck-up and doesn't deserve to be given any praise._

————————————————————

_Patient 03: believes herself able to change reality. The child grew up in the most normal home out of all the other patients. Her mother was a movie star but was often negligent with Patient 03._

_The child has become well versed in hypnosis. She has become rather good at it, to the point where she can even hypnotize some of the staff for short periods of time._

_She is the most promising of all the children._

...

_Patient 03 has managed to steal makeup from various staff members. She believes herself to hold true beauty and wishes to follow in her mother's footsteps._

————————————————————

_Patient 04: claims to see the dead. This child was raised in an unhealthy environment. His mother was an alcoholic and often told the child he was worthless. Certain reports mention the mother leaving the child in dark closets for days while she drank._

_His visions of the dead are nothing more than schizophrenia that had previously gone undiagnosed._

...

_Patient 04 is the only child with an active parent visitor. His mother often brings him unhealthy substances and although the staff does their best to prevent patient 04 from getting ahold of it he has._

_Patient 04 has turned to drugs to treat his schizophrenia. He claims the hospital's medicine is poison._

————————————————————

_Patient 05: believes himself able to teleport. The child is small and easily missable. Often he pops up when least expected._

_The child is unruly, cocky, and a complete headache for most staff members._

...

_Patient 05 claims that he is ready for time travel._

————————————————————

_Patient 06: Believes a monster lives within his chest and often has nightmares. The child hasn't spoken in his care but to Patient 04._

_His record is thin and only includes a few incidents of abandonment by his mother, leaving the child to assume that it's his fault._

...

_Patient 06 sits in his cell unless prodded out by staff. He enjoys reading and often times will observe other's conversation._

_Despite his quiet demeanor the child has the mental capacity to understand the world around him._

————————————————————

_Patient 07: claims to have powers relating to sound. She has become afraid of herself and resorted to placing cotton balls in her ears. She believes that the more sounds she hears; the stronger her power is._

_She had been put on high dosages of sedatives after she had attempted to deafen herself._

...

_Patient 07 does not get along with the other patients. She is different from them, afraid of her powers instead of accepting, and often they see her as a nuisance._

_The sedatives make her into an emotionless doll, after all._

————————————————————

"Such strange children," Grace said as she flipped through the documents. She has always adored children but...she doesn't know if she's qualified for these cases. This is a complicated matter considering she had just obtained her psychology degree.

She knew she'd get cases like this but just reading the reports has her stomach in knots. When you study it you can distance yourself from the matter but this? All these cases are real kids, real kids who deserve so much better than the mental abuse they had suffered at the hands of their families.

"They are a strange bunch. All of them believe they have some sort of abilities but as of their one week stay here I have doubts of any such powers," Reginald said, her potential boss looked deeply at her. He was waiting for her to react.

"They have voids that must be filled, needs of affection, and familiarity that they lacked. All of them were neglected or mistreated as children."

Reginald looked at her without any words and lit a match, lighting the end of a cigar before putting it in his mouth. He stared at her with a look that could not be bartered with.

He wanted her on his team and well, she was hopeless to fight it.

...

The first day with the children was nearly a week later. When she entered the gray bricked building the staff was in a panic, throwing up papers and bumping into each other and screaming.

"He's escaped!" A young woman screamed, holding her face in her hands as pure panic laced her features.

It's her first day at work and she wants to walk straight back out. A beeping starts blaring, metal bars fall down in front of doorways and the building goes into lockdown.

She sits on an old worn down red seat and crosses her legs. A few nurses talk to each other, deep breath in and out, then they join her. Nothing panicking will do but cause fear.

Which patient was it? She wonders out of all the files she read she isn't sure which one could cause such panic. Perhaps patient 02 was throwing makeshift knives at nurses. Perhaps patient 06 was having an episode. Perhaps patient 04 was seeing a dead man coming after him and believed he needed to escape or he'd be killed.

So many possibilities.

"Boo!" The nurses jolt before they start screaming. They are gone within the second running to the furthest side of the room. While a voice crackled behind her, she could practically feel their breath on her throat.

"Who's there?" She says, a shake in her voice as a boy hops over the couch and sits beside her. 

He's small, tiny even, his shoulders were set back with confidence and he had a grin to match. "I heard we were getting a new doctor and I had to see what all the fuss was about but you aren't worth it. I'm Number Five...The one and only teleporting boy wonder."

She stared before a soft smile made its way across her lips. "You're a cutie," she said, hand reaching out to pat his head but before she could the boy swatted her hand away.

"I am not cute! Only girls are cute and I am boy therefore I am handsome and you will refer to me as such!"

At that moment that the child glared at her, she knew she made the right choice in taking the job.

...

"Number Five," Reginald slapped the child across the face, blood dropped from open wounds on the boy's cheek as a few of Reginald's rings dig into his skin. "You are being a brat, scarring all the staff like this. If I had half a mind I'd throw you out back for the dogs to eat."

Five said not a word but he stared Reginald in the eyes with heat, his lips twitched every once in a while as if he was fighting himself to stay calm.

"You will get no supper tonight."

Five nodded with a glare.

...

"I don't know if this was the best decision," Reginald said as he walks her down white hallways after white hallways. All the children are bunched together in the same hall on the furthest side away from the entrance of the building. "You were better off as a housewife."

"A housewife? I think you have me confused with someone else sir. I have never found that life to suit me."

Reginald said nothing but continued on with a glare, ignoring the silence. The white walls just seemed to get closer and closer and well- places like this could drive someone insane.

...

Her first session was with Patient 01.

The patient is blond and his hair shows beautifully in the bright lighting. The child was rather happy, a smile was on his lips and he kept eye contact with her from the moment she entered the room.

"My name is Grace," she said, smiling, keeping her clipboard up so he couldn't see what she was writing. "And yours?"

"Number One," he said, nothing in his voice sounded distraught at that name the hospital had given him. Although she knows the children are almost 13 and they must have had names from their parents.

"I'm a doctor," she said, looking at the way that statement made the child look at her strangely. "One of the mind, you see. I'm here to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?"

Number One nodded.

"Let's start with your favorite food."

"Hotdogs-oh or maybe those pancakes we get for breakfast sometimes when we're good."

"I love pancakes," she said, taking pride in the way that the boy's eyes lit up and when she wrote down the answers he didn't even notice. Instead he looked passed her for a brief moment, to the big glass mirror that he could see himself in and he looked at his own reflection in wonder.

She wonders if the boy knew it was a one-sided mirror and that there were others watching or if he simply liked his own appearance.

"Do you like syrup?" She inquires and the boy nods. "Chocolate chips?" The boy nods again.

The session goes smoothly. The child seems to be rather cheery and naive about most things.

...

She is given her own office a few rooms down from the children. It is bland and white and she doesn't quite enjoy it but there are a few paintings on the wall that she could stare at for hours. 

Not that she was an art enthusiast but she could imagine so many things when she looked at them. At the rainforest, at the trees that sway, at the water that runs fast and deep. So many different emotions that when she sits in her chair, her hands just fall on her desk and she leans on them without even thinking.

The paintings draw her in.

When she gets out of her fog she feels a strange tickle in her ear. She ignores it and instead places her file of Number One into a filing cabinet.

...

She goes to lunch at noon with the other staff members. Although the children are present they are seated far away at their own separate table and not to be bothered.

"My Name is Susan," one of the nurses chime, her pigtails bounce with each of her words. "It's so nice to meet ya. We don't often get new faces around here."

She cuts up her meatloaf before nodding. "Oh? Why's that? It seems like a nice place."

One of the other nurses snorts before shaking their heads. "Never judge a book by its cover sis. You'll soon find this place has more leaking facets than a backwater whore house." The woman chuckles at her own jokes and Susan hits her on the side.

"Shut your trap, Lucy! You'll scare the poor girl away. At least give her a fighting chance."

Lucy rolls her eyes and takes a bite of her meatloaf.

The room is white, the tables are brown, the sound echoes. She hears a few waves of laughter from the children's table and sees what she believes is patient 04 sticking carrots up his nose.

"I'm happy to be here," she said, taking a bite of her meatloaf that was a little on the burnt-side.

...

Throughout the next weeks she has had at least one session with all of the children. Finding each one different from the last.

Patient 02 stuttered like no one's business and he was ashamed of it.

Patient 03 talked about patient 01.

Patient 04 talked to himself, was rather jumpy, and named approximately sixteen favorite foods one of which was dog food.

Patient 05 talked little and spent the entire session staring directly into the mirror. 

Patient 06 said nothing.

Patient 07, was skittish, pulling on her gown, avoiding eye contact, etc.

Overall the children were vastly different from one another and she knew she had her hands full.

...

"Did you hear Number One shattered another glass?" Suzan tells her over morning coffee.

She shakes her head.

"The old man's been putting something in their water. To control their 'abilities,' guess it ain't workin anymore."

"He's been drugging them?" She asks, almost disgusted but of course, she knows it's for their own good.

"They've got problems, Grace. If Reginald didn't give em something they'd be a danger to themselves."

She nods, after all that's true.

...

Why didn't Reginald tell her? She supposes he'd want to keep it under wraps and she is new but? Wouldn't that help her with her studies of them?

She digresses and when Reginald calls her into his office for her daily report she doesn't mention it.

...

She witnessed something strange.

She was walking past the courtyard, her head had just happened to turn at the right angle and she caught a glimpse of blue light. And then a child had popped out of it! 

A living child, Number Five, appeared from the blue light.

It was so unbelievable that for a moment all she did was stand there and stare. Of course she chalked it up to her imagination. The children don't really have superpowers.

Right?

...

"This is my pocket watch," Patient 03 told her, whispers so slowly. "I use it to hypnotize people," the child giggles.

"Oh really? Could you show me?" She asks, a sweet melody to her voice and Number Three nodded with a glint in her eyes.

"You have to listen, hear the ticking, let your heart fall in line with sound until it's all you can think about-"before she could ask anything Three clicks a button on the watch and it opens. The watch starts ticking, so steadily and all she does is listen.

Tic

"You're growing sleepy."

Tic

"All you can hear is the sound of my voice."

Tic

"Stay so very still as your eyes grow heavy."

Tic

Number Three leans into her, leaning so close to whisper into her ear. "I heard a rumor you think I'm pretty."

Tic

...

Three is adorable, from her soft cheeks to smoky eyes to her curls that bounced each time she spoke. There wasn't a child in the world more beautiful than Number Three.

_Three is pretty._

...

At lunch she pokes at the meatloaf with little interest.

"Oh no! Don't tell me you let Three get to ya! You've got that look in your eye."

She shrugs her shoulders, feeling strange but unable to put her finger on what was bothering her.

"Yep, oh most definitely that child has gotten you good."

She shrugs her shoulders again.

...

"Don't hypnotize the staff," Reginald scolds Three. His voice is as close as a razor to her skin, making the child uncomfortable from his mere presence.

"Sorry," Three said, taking a step back, but Reginald's gaze only got hotter.

"Sorry? Is that going to fix this mess?"

Three shakes her head, eyes wide.

"Didn't think so," Reginald drags the child away.

...

She only found out later that three had been dragged away to electroshock therapy. She only really knew because the child smelled of burnt hair and could barely stop her eyes from rolling in the back of her head in the infirmary.

It took nearly a week for Three to fully recover.

Reginald made no comments.

...

"Daddy dearest is always like that," Four said to her, bringing her mild discomfort. She hadn't realized the children felt any maternal feelings towards the man.

But she supposes in times like this, one might pretend.

"Allison will be fine-”

"Allison?" She asked and before she could realize her mistake Four had shoved a hand over his mouth and refused to speak anymore.

...

Three days later there was an incident in the courtyard. Apparently there were a pile of dead bunnies and a scared, blooded Six who refused to talk about the matter.

...

That night as she was filling out paperwork, she heard something. 

Footsteps.

The children weren't supposed to be up and she was already irritated. She got up with a huff and opened her door only to come face to face with nothing. She looked left and then right- and there she caught a glimpse at a small creature.

Brown, hairy, a cane in one hand and- was it an ape? For some reason the discovery didn't shock her and she went back to her paperwork.

Soon enough she got distracted by the paintings and her ears began to tickle once again.

...

Number Seven pushed cotton balls into her ears. Her eyes were pinched up in pain and all she did was rock back and forth on her cot.

"She's just having an episode," Suzan said, pulling her away. "Best to leave her be when she's like this."

She nods.

...

Three days later Two and One get in a fight. Two gains a broken arm and One a split lip.

...

She has a few sessions with the children gaining nothing new.

...

"What are you?" Number Five inquires, prodding her with his very words. His eyes were calculating and as he stared he seemed to be suspicious. 

"What am I?" She asks, confused, and Five crosses his arms across his chest.

"That's the million dollar question. You don't flinch at our abuse, and you don't seem phased at our powers. Just what are you?"

She smiles, hands behind her back as she looks down at the child. "I am Grace, dear Five. I hope you haven't forgotten that I'm your psychiatrist."

"You sound like a record," Five muttered, looking away with disgust.


End file.
